The Special Two
by Clato-Crazies
Summary: Katniss is lost in her mind. She starts asking questions. Questions she'd never thought she'd ask about people she never thought she'd care about. One-shot. Set during Mockingjay.


It's quiet. I can hear my each intake of breath as if it were a gust of wind, my own heartbeat as if someone was pounding on a door in my head. _I can hear myself think. _So well, it's deafening. I can feel the panic start to overwhelm me once more. _Think of what you know._

_My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me._

"It's not working!" I scream to no one at all.

A certain haze starts to fill my vision. A certain haze I know all to well.

I'm taken back to the victory tour. First to District Eleven. Thresh's parents standing under his picture that played across the screen and that bizarre hole in my chest, I now know as sadness, I felt about his absence even though I didn't know him at all. Then looking to Rue's family and my heart completely breaking. It hadn't helped seeing her mother and siblings cry as well. Knowing that I was the reason that she wasn't standing in my place and I in hers. _I couldn't protect her. _

And then to District One. The entire crowd in uproar. _"Tell us how you really feel!". _Marvel and Glimmer's parents had been standing there quietly, but with a look of disappointment about them and I still can't tell if it was directed towards their children or _me. _As if dying had been my job and I'd failed them personally.

They come one after another. Upset, angry, disappointed, ashamed, _broken _parents and families. They fill my mind and I slowly feel the guilt creep up onto me.

Then one suddenly makes it all stop. One I'm not used to seeing or remembering, but comes up every once in awhile. _District Two. _

District Two acted a lot calmer than I expected they would after being the direct cause of one of their tributes deaths and the indirect cause of the other. Haymitch tells me that while they are upset when they lose they believe in a fair fight and if you win, you win. Period. Even if they don't like it they'll treat you with as much respect as they can muster.

Besides their names and what they look like, I don't know about Cato and Clove at all. The only one who remotely knows is Peeta and he still doesn't have much except for the fact that they had seemed to respect each other over everyone and discussed a decision with the other before carrying it out. They were oddly chummy for being tributes in The Hunger Games, from District Two no less.

I remember looking at their families and thinking how incredibly alike everyone looked. Everyone in Cato's family seemed to have blond hair and blue eyes and everyone in Cloves had deep brownish blackish hair and green or some type of dark eyes. And each family had two kids, minus Cato and Clove, that seemed to be around the same age. Cato's family had a son who appeared to be not much younger than Cato, maybe about fourteen, and an infant that sat in her mothers arms. As for Clove's family a girl who seemed to be about twelve and a little boy who seemed to be two or three. All of them wore stern expressions yet at the same time seemed to be oozing a lot more emotion than I expected they were supposed to. The ones that seemed to be the most upset were the oldest children in both families. Neither of them seemed to be angry but very sad at the loss of an older brother and sister. I can't help myself when I look over at Clove's younger sister and thinking _that could've been Prim. _Clove was just about my age and her sister Prim's age. _That could've been Prim standing there watching Clove give this speech knowing I was gone. _

And not for the first time since Peeta and I won I think, why isn't it? Why am I alive? Why is Peeta alive? How did we manage to beat two of the most dangerous tributes in that arena? Especially since they had the same advantage we had. They were a team, they could've crushed us like you crushed a bug under a boot.

Then I'm taken back to that day. The feast. Peeta's leg had been sliced open. _By Cato. _I had to run to the cornucopia to get his medicine, but I wasn't the only one. Clove was there too. We threw some knives and shot some arrows before she ended up tackling me to the ground and pinning me under her. She had one of her knives up to my face, ready to carve my face like a piece of meat. And then she wasn't there anymore. That's when I looked up and thresh was there and had her suspended by her shirt collar. He started yelling accusations saying she was the one that killed Rue, that she had just said so when she was antagonizing me a few seconds ago. She tries to save herself and deny it. It's at that same moment I saw Thresh raise his hand that was not holding Clove up. In that hand he held a rock. A good sized rock that could do some damage. Clove saw it too and in a last ditch effort she called for the one person who might have actually been able to save her life.

Cato.

_"__Cato! Cato!"_

A small part of me expected Cato not to care and just leave Clove there to die. The bigger part of me expected him to burst through the tree line, having prepared himself for something like that, and run Thresh and I through with one of his many weapons.

What I hadn't expected was to hear Cato's almost desperate cry of Clove's name from far away.

Where had he been? Why hadn't he been there with Clove? What could have possibly been so important he had to run away and risk his district partners life? They could've won together and brought pride to their district, why wouldn't they have been watching out for each other?

After Thresh had bashed her head in we heard Cato call Clove's name again. He had gotten closer, probably near the tree line. His voice had sounded so broken and full of pain. He must've seen Clove's body lying lifeless on the ground. Thresh reminded me to run. And run I did. I wanted to get far enough away just in case Cato had decided to chase after me. When I had gotten to the tree line I allowed myself a look over my shoulder. What I saw made me stop in my tracks. No one had been chasing after me. Not even close. What I saw was Cato on his knees bending over Clove's body. When I listened closely I heard a little of what he said.

_"__You've gotta stay with me, Clove."_

That was something I'll never forget. A career on his knees _begging _his district partner not to die. It had been at that moment that I wondered if they had history before games. If they'd met each other before. If they were _friends. _Some kind of deeper feelings then _district partner_.

After almost two years I still haven't gotten the answers to my questions, but that's merely because I had no one to _ask_.

Apparently my curiosities about Cato and Clove has cleared my mind enough to get up and calm down. I walked around the building we had been staying in while in District 2. It was eery being back. Standing at the Justice Building for Cato and Clove had been something official and I knew it was okay. Somehow being here now uninvited, I didn't feel like I was just visiting. I felt like I was invading someones personal space. _This was their home, _I thought. _They walked these streets everyday and saw these same buildings. They were normal. Just like you. _

In the games it's easy to dehumanize the careers. All you ever see is their bloody killer side. You don't think about the fact that they had a home too. They had a life and a family just like everyone else. The guilt creeps into my stomach once again.

"Katniss?"

I hear a sweet old voice come from behind me. I turn around.

"Commander Lyme."

"Is everything okay?" she asks, giving me a sad smile.

"Yeah. Yeah, everything is good." I say, giving my usual lie.

She gives a slight nod of her head and says nothing. She starts walking away and I know if I don't ask her now I may never get the chance to.

"Lyme wait!" she stops and turns around. "Actually, no. Everything is not okay."

Her eyebrows scrunch together and years of worry lines appear on her forehead.

"What seems to be the problem? Are you feeling okay? Do you want me to go get Boggs?"

"No, no. That won't be necessary. I'm fine. I just…. I have some questions that I've been hoping you'd be able to answer."

Her look of worry turns to confusion and she gives me a little indication with her hand to continue.

"It's about District Two. Or… rather some _people _from District Two."

"Who?"

I hesitate before I speak again. I don't know her connection with them and I'd hate to upset her. I decide the best way to go about it is to just be blunt.

"What do you know about Cato and Clove?"

Her worry lines instantly vanish. Her eyebrows smooth out. Her eyes widen and her mouth opens into and O shape. Her face now portraying realization. She gives me another one of her small smiles and grabs me by my elbow leading me over to a stairway. We sit down on the top stair.

"Well you've come to the right place to ask. What would you like to know?"

"What's your relationship with them?" I say, curious as to why she's so eager to talk about it and is not more reserved.

"I was a trainer for their whole lives at the academy and I also knew their families very well. They were some of my brightest students. Bursting with questions and wanting to know everything they could do to improve. I trained them until they were about fourteen years old then they got someone who would train them harder for the next two years, but we still kept in touch. They were good kids."

"Really?"

She nodded.

"At least around me, but I know they changed a lot after I stopped training them and they got a new trainer. All kids from District Two turn out that way." She said with a regretful look in her eye.

"Why is that?"

"Just because someone can wield a sword or chuck a knife at a wall doesn't mean they're intimidating."

I snort.

"Well to a certain extent… I'm a victor, I can fight, and could handle pretty much any weapon if needed, but I don't scare you do I?" She asked raising an eyebrow.

"That's different, you're a sweet old lady. Plus I know you're on my side." I say looking down and fiddling my fingers.

"Doesn't matter she said. If I wanted to scare you I could. And that's what they teach the tributes. To be cold and brutal to everyone, that way they're scared of you."

"Cato and Clove, too?"

"Cato and Clove _especially_." She gave a long-suffering sigh before looking out into space. "What I wouldn't give for people to have seen them in their day-to-day lives. I hate the picture of fear they painted around them. They were wonderful children. Well-mannered, at least when it counted, and sweet. Sweet to each other too….in their own way that is." She finished wistfully.

A few moments of silence pass before I allow myself to ask the question really weighing on my mind.

"So… what was that like? Their relationship? Interaction?"

Her confused expression decided to make another appearance.

"Like I said they had their own way of doing things. They would always tease each other, Cato especially, he loved getting under that girls skin." She laughs. "Clove had a habit of trying to beat Cato up because of it, which was always an interesting fight, but always ended up with Cato pinning her to the floor and making her apologize. Which as you can imagine never happened." She lets out another sigh. "They seemed to be the best of friends. I guess you don't really have an option when you grow up with a person though, huh?"

"They grew up together?" I ask incredulously.

She nods her head enthusiastically.

"Their parents had always been close friends, but as things would have it they knew their children would end up being enemies in the games. Though, of course, District Two abides by 'keep your friends close, but your enemies closer', so that's exactly what they did. They introduced the two when they were very young and they made almost instant friends. Their parents never denied them a play date. And it stayed that way for the rest of their lives. It got to the point where you never really saw one without the other and if you did you always wondered where the other one was."

"That's insane."

"Yeah it is." Her fond smile suddenly drops. "Only thing is they were getting pretty close and caring for each other a lot more than their parents intended, right before the games too." She shook her head. "I could see it coming, but I couldn't do anything to stop it. And I just knew they were destined for heartbreak from the beginning. Neither one of them wanted to enter the games that year, but it was too late. In District Two they chose their volunteers in advance. They were picked. Their parents wouldn't allow either of them to back out."

"That's awful," I say my eyes slowly starting to water. _More guilt. _I clear my throat before I talk again. "I have one more question."

She looks at me.

"What happened in the arena?"

She sucks in a sharp breath then looks down at her lap.

"They were so excited. They actually had a chance to turn this horrible fate around and make it out together." She swallowed heavily. "When the time came for the feast they had a plan. Clove would go get the bag and Cato would hide and watch to make sure everything was okay. I guess, when he saw she had you pinned down that she would be okay. He heard something and, I presume, assumed it was that redheaded girl. He went after her. By the time she called for him it was too late. He was too far away and he couldn't get to her in time." She looked straight into my eyes. "It tore him apart Katniss. He probably sat there for another hour just holding her and looking at her, not allowing the hovercraft to pick up her body. As if he though keeping her body would make it less real. Like giving her body up to the hovercraft was the absolute end. After he finally allowed them to take her he had just enough energy to go after Thresh. He killed him and got his pack back, which had the body armor in it. Not that it really mattered. He had no fight left in him. When Clove died he died. He was no longer himself."

_I'm dead anyway. _He had said. I wonder if that's what he was referring to.

"If I'm honest with myself, I'm glad you shot him. You did him a favor and put him out of his misery. Thank you." She said while taking my hands.

By this time the tears are streaming down both of our faces and I don't know what to say. So I don't say anything. Lyme seems to understand and just pulls me into her and holds me.

_One good thing did come from the games. Although it wasn't the way anyone wanted I was able to help reunite them. _

And for the first time in what seems like years I feels something other than guilt.

_Relief. _


End file.
